The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to cellular communication but not exclusively, to methods and systems of managing cellular communication.
One of the most popular communication technologies that have been developed for mobile communications systems is text messaging, in particular the short message service (SMS) that allows mobile users to receive text messages via wireless communication devices, including SMS-capable cellular mobile phones. Mobile and stationary users can send messages to recipient users by entering a text message and the destination address of the recipient user, who can be either a mobile or a non-mobile user.
Based on the ability to send cellular messages, a number of electronic information services have been developed around SMS technology. For instance, electronic information services have integrated SMS into their systems in a manner that allows them to provide a number of services including email-to-SMS and fax-to-SMS, paging-to-SMS, interactive banking, and general information services such as providing financial information. Thus, cellular messaging is not limited to transmitting textual messages between users, but has developed into a general system for wireless communication of electronic information. As a result, an SMS message may include not only text messages entered by mobile and non-mobile users, but may also include e-mail, fax, paging, textual data of e-mail, financial, news, and other electronic information.
Moreover, during the last years, a multimedia messaging service (MMS) standard, which is a standard for a telephony messaging systems that allow sending messages that includes multimedia objects, such as images, audio, video, rich text etc., became very common.
During the last years various developments have changed the manner text messaging, such as SMS communication services, function. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,088,990, filed on 8 Aug. 2006 describes a terminal for a communication network, the terminal being capable of supporting a plurality of applications and having means of communicating user messages, such as short messages. The terminal comprises means for receiving user messages having data that comprises characters and a header relating to one of the applications and means for addressing the data to a respective application according to the header. Another example is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,319,880, filed on 19 Dec. 2001 describes a method for forwarding an SMS message in a mobile communication system where a calling mobile terminal requests transmission of an SMS message to a message center (MC) and the MC determines that a forwarding function is set for a called mobile terminal. If it is set, the MC transmits the SMS message to a destination mobile terminal.